Win with your people. All of them, at their best.
Strategy tells a team where to go. Whether it gets there depends on the people. I help leaders get both right, at the same time.
Book a 20-minute callThe Strength Flywheel
A team at full strength is not luck. It's a flywheel. The leader gets it moving, and then it builds its own momentum.
Climate.
It starts with you. A leader's energy travels through a team: stress spreads, and so does calm focus. People need four things from the person they follow: trust, compassion, stability and hope. Give them that, and they bring their energy to work. Hold it back, and they keep it to themselves.
Strengths.
In the right climate, people get to use what they do best, every day. Not in their spare time. In the work that matters.
Engagement.
People who use their strengths every day commit. Not just comply. They bring ideas, take ownership and help each other.
Performance.
Engaged teams deliver, and focused teams deliver faster. Less noise, clearer priorities, more speed. And every win feeds back into the climate: success builds trust and hope, and the flywheel turns faster.
The first push is the hardest, and that's where the leader matters most. Once it turns, every turn gets easier.
The four needs come from Gallup's research on what followers need from leaders (Rath and Conchie, Strengths Based Leadership, 2008).
Performance and engagement are not a trade-off.
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast” is one of the most quoted lines in leadership. It is also dangerous. It makes leaders choose. The best teams I have led and worked with had both: a clear strategy, and people who wanted to win it together. That is what I help build.
“Mattias has an unrivalled ability to break down walls and bring out people's honest views of themselves and their colleagues. It helped all of us grow.”Sten Schwalbe, Marketing & Category Director, Upfield
Where I start
Every assignment starts with a conversation with the leader, not with a test. Three questions:
- What does the business need this team to deliver?
- What does the team need to be able to do to deliver it?
- Where is the gap: in direction, in ability or in climate?
The answers decide what we do on the day, and what every person's Growth Plan is tied to.
The method
I use CliftonStrengths, Gallup's assessment of 34 talent themes. I have worked with it since 2006 and have been a Gallup-certified coach since 2015. It gives a team something rare: a precise, shared language for how each person thinks, works and contributes.
Four principles behind it:
- Talent is natural. Strengths are talent you invest in.
- Strengths can be developed without limit. Weaknesses can be managed, but rarely lead to success.
- No theme is better than another.
- It is a tool for growth, never for putting people in boxes.
Measuring engagement. As an add-on, I measure engagement before and after with Gallup's Q12, the twelve questions behind Gallup's engagement research. I am trained by Gallup to run it. It turns “it felt like a good day” into numbers you can follow over time.
What I believe
- Performance and wellbeing go together.
- Build on strengths. Manage weaknesses.
- Teams learn their way to performance, and learning needs room to try and fail.
Your team, at full strength.
Twenty minutes is enough to see where your team stands and what to do first.
Book a 20-minute call